How much for the FIRST Ford Sierra Cosworth RS500? £100K? £125K? More?

The very first Ford Sierra Cosworth RS500 is going under the hammer this month at Silverstone Auctions. But how much will it make as ‘Fast Ford’ prices keep on rising?

In the last year we’ve seen some pretty chunky prices for relatively modern classic Fords, with Ford Escorts selling for almost £100k (more than £100k when you add in buyer premium), and a Ford Sierra Cosworth RS500 going for £115k (plus premium) and another for almost exactly the same.

All those cars were little used and almost as new (perhaps even better than new), so what will a 4ok mile Sierra Cosworth RS500 fetch? A chunk less, you might suspect, than the pristine examples sold in 2017. But maybe not.

This particular RS500 – being sold this month at Silverstone Auctions – is actually the very first one built, and it was built by Ford rather than Tickford (who built the other 499) as one of the original prototypes Ford used for testing, but it was fettled by Ford before being one of the 500 cars sold. It is chassis 001.

When new, this Sierra Cosworth RS500 cost £20k, but as the first ever car this one could fly; it’s very original – apart from a Magnex exhaust – and comes with an extensive history and a full condition report by specialist Paul Linfoot.

It’s a properly used example – it’s done over 40k miles – but could that ‘001’ chassis tempt buyers to push it beyond £120k?

We’ll find out when it’s auctioned on 19 May 2018.

Update: This RS500 was unsold.